Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board

Double Jeopardy; A; WTH is the matter with women. Q; What is Men, Alex?

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mudpuppy:

--- Quote ---No offense intended, and I hope your excitement becomes contentment.
--- End quote ---

None taken as always, Hops. Because I'm built primarily to love a girl completely I'm afraid that's the only way I'm ever truly content. That's possibly not a good thing but it doesn't seem something I can change...or want to.


--- Quote ---I'm guilty as charged, for self-referencing my experience a lot.
--- End quote ---

I think we all do. It's human nature. I think I'm a little more cognizant of it than many because of my experience when Mrs Iggy died and people didn't know what to say and so said what they knew, which was their own experiences and trying to dovetail them to mine. Doesn't work too well usually.

It occurred to me this morning she may not even have broken up with me as an individual or for anything in particular that happened directly between us, hence her making up things about the relationship to make sense of why we were breaking up and telling me to delete the texts of when we were together because they reminded us of how happy we were.
As I think about the things she said and how things went, it's more like she decided that when I showed her I was less than perfect and we hit  our first bump in the road,  the idea of being with someone, anyone, has less appeal than the idea of being alone.
Who knows? Time will fill me in eventually.
Thanks for listening guys.

mud

mudpuppy:
Just listened to this really good talk on Borderline PD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to5qRLRSS7g

and to be honest my girl not only has none of those 9 traits even mildly, I'm not so sure I don't have some of them myself. :shock: :P
So I'm even more convinced she's just a girl who, like all of us, has been wounded by life and is just trying to figure it out and not be hurt again.

mud

lighter:
Mud:

You puzzle me.  You're so centered, as a general rule.  The emotional male/female stuff seems to bring up what appears to me to be racing mind kind of stuff for you.  Not criticizing, just observing over a period of years, with compassion.

Sometimes it feels like you're in your own way.  Sometimes we all are, frankly.  I get that.  Maybe I recognize it, bc I do it myself.

Anyhoo, I see benefit to researching PDs, as you believe they relate to this gal, but I also can see how focusing hard ON her might not be your optimal position for attracting her back.  Or sustaining connection with her either.

I'm saying, focus on yourself to understand if and how you might be in your own way, in any form.

Don't take that as preachy, please.  I want you to have another live of your life.  I really do.

Lighter

mudpuppy:
Didn't sound preachy and I appreciate the attempt to help.
My mind races when I don't understand why something happened. Until I understand, at which point my mind no longer races.
Unfortunately I have a hard time understanding complicated people and most single women in my age cohort tend to be pretty complicated because most have been through difficult and damaging divorces. There are very few widows my age and most gals who have never been married by now often demonstrate why in a fairly frightening way. Not all but most. So that pretty much leaves me with divorcees who are toting some kind of wound and it is a very different wound than what I'm sporting.
I simply asked the one before this one out one time which sprouted three and a half years of weird avoidant behavior from a someone who had previously been very friendly. We never even went on a single date and I still have no clue what her problem is but don't much care and haven't for some time, except that I'm very good friends with her dad which makes it a bit awkward.
This present gal is even more confusing. One minute she's trying to decide whether we should elope or have a conventional wedding and literally on the same weekend is deciding to break up with me and the only thing that occurred was I said I was disappointed in how the weekend had gone because she had to work for half of it and literally as I texted that to her also noted it was probably me and not her fault at all. To me that is something I apologize for, as I did the next morning, and it's over with. If the situation was reversed that is what would have happened. I can't imagine what kind of process leads someone to break up a wonderful relationship over something like that. And so i don't understand.
It's important for me to determine that process because if she is a borderline I don't want to attract her back because it will only happen again. OTOH, if she's just wounded then I would like to give it another try, if she wants to.
I'm more than happy to take the blame when I'm an idiot. I was after we broke up and I told her I was and apologized for it. But I didn't really do anything wrong in the relationship itself other than pout a little bit for a few hours. If that's a legitimate reason to break up a relationship that is headed toward marriage then I might as well hang it up right now because nobody can meet the standard of never doing something dumb. And even she realized that wasn't really a sufficient reason which is why she made up reasons when I pointed out how little sense it made and what I thought the real reason is.
As for me, I have done quite a lot of work, as I think I mentioned. The breakup let me finally realize how much grief and even anger I still carried from Mrs Mudpup's death and how much UI still was looking backwards. It also let me see how broken my relationship with God was.

But the bottom line will always be a great relationship was ended and it didn't even make sense to the person who ended it. Since I am not that person then of course my main concentration is on understanding her. If I had broken up a wonderful relationship for no clear reason then I would be concentrating on me.

Our connection wasn't sustained because instead of sitting down and resolving what should have been a small problem she isolated herself for five days and made up her mind without talking to me.

As far as attracting her back. I'm going to let things lay until Nov or Dec when her schedule lets up and we've both had time to heal and just ask her if she wants to talk to even see if she has any interest. Meanwhile I pray for wisdom and patience. Not sure what else I can do.

mud

sKePTiKal:
mud, I'm coming up on 3 years of widowhood now. But I'm WAY further behind you as to other relationships. Friends are filling in some of the simple human connection need for me, that energizes me to being open to more people. Especially when "nothing bad happens" and I have fun.

Somewhere early in the process of grieving, a 16-ton anvil of realization hit me that I'd not lived any of my adult life alone, to speak of. (Short periods or doing things on my own, yes... but not just living alone.) And I was finally at a place where I felt ready to tackle that, explore it... and ENJOY it. For what it is. So maybe a year or two of that now; and I can finally recognize how I feel when I'm "lonely".  I've had to face a lot of my fears - big & little too. Break through my sacred taboos of "I can't"... and figure out how to do it by myself. What "it" might be.

The little bit of "online dating" I explored made it clear to me that I was in no way shape or form ready to "date" - and the truth is, I never really "dated" anyone I had relationships with in my life. The concept is like some kind of ritual "game" where the rules are always changing and each person has their own set of rules unique to them. I detest those kinds of games between people; always have. It always seemed morally "wrong" to me to play with another person's feelings this way. Either you have a connection or you don't; either you care or you don't - or you care, but not enough for a certain level of intimacy. And you're able to TALK about it together. Doesn't make you "bad" but I don't need to dance that dance till I drop to decide if we have level of connection anymore either. Or put up with ill treatment or anything else that bothers me just to find a connection with people. At my age, life's too short for that crap!

On the other hand, after age 50 or so (it varies a lot)... the logistics of a relationship get a lot more complex. It's more like a corporate merger with all the details that need ironing out. Especially with families and assets and lifestyles.... and on & on. People already have the life they wanted to build in most cases - or the reasons why they don't, are justification for further investigation and caution. So it's not like a young couple setting out to build a life together - weaving each other into it. But that is the pattern we have in our heads for what a relationship coming to blossom should be like.

I think that genetic-societal-historical pattern (I call it "white picket fence syndrome"; some others call it the "Ozzie & Harriett rule") kinda gets in the way of us older folks knowing just what it is we're looking for REALLY and what "rules" or forms that relationship takes, that actually do make sense for people with developed lives and autonomy... trying to make a connection that is valuable and fulfilling for both people.

No one who knows me, would describe me as a "hippie-dippy free spirit"; they'd choke & pee themselves laughing over that oxymoron - but when it comes to relationships and patterns/expectations we have engraved on our brains... I really think we need start to bending those rules... patterns and even design something totally suitable for the situation borrowing this from over there, maybe a little of that... and oh, THAT might be fun... and throw out the expectations left-over from our 20s and do things differently. Throw the rules, patterns, and picket fences to the four winds and just deal with things as they are, as they come up... and surf the wave.

(no, I'm not wearing purple; at least not yet!!!!  ;)    )

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